Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - A government-backed tabloid said on Thursday that Chinese developers who are frantic to sell off unsold...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - A government-backed tabloid said on Thursday that Chinese developers who are frantic to sell off unsold homes are using "fancy" methods to reduce prices, seemingly getting over laws banning excessive discounting.
In certain small communities, developers have offered to accept food items like wheat, garlic, watermelons, and peaches in place of cash down payments, effectively lowering the price of real estate.
According to the online news source The Paper, "several real estate companies have launched innovative strategies to help drive sales, with fancy incentives like trading melons and fruit for homes arousing suspicion about whether they are trying to sidestep limitations on price reduction."
According to a developer this week, purchasers can use watermelons to pay as little as 100,000 yuan ($14,935) for an apartment in Nanjing, Jiangsu province's easternmost city, according to The Paper. It stated that the promotion was currently on hold, blaming a salesman.
This week, a developer in Wuxi, also in Jiangsu, said that customers might use peaches to defray as much as 188,888 yuan of the purchase price.
The Paper reported that more than 22 cities have restricted price reductions since the second half of 2021 in an effort to prevent a predicted slowdown in the real estate market, making it challenging for real estate companies to further lower prices in an effort to increase sales.
Despite a number of relaxing measures adopted by localities to restore morale hurt by COVID-19 containment measures, real estate sales by floor area declined for the tenth consecutive month in May and plummeted 31.77 percent from the same month a year earlier.
According to data from China Real Estate Information Corp., The Paper revealed that as of the end of May, the majority of the 100 largest real estate enterprises had only reached less than 30% of their sales goals.
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